Synchronization of ArrayList in Java

Implementation of arrayList is not synchronized is by default. It means if a thread modifies it structurally and multiple threads access it concurrently, it must be synchronized externally. Structural modification means addition or deletion of element(s) from the list or explicitly resizes the backing array. Changing the value of existing element is not structural modification.

There are two way to create Synchronized Arraylist.
1. Collections.synchronizedList() method.
2. Using CopyOnWriteArrayList.

Method 1: Using Collections.synchronizedList() method

To do serial access, it is critical that all access to the backing list is accomplished through returned list. It is imperative that user manually synchronize on the returned list when iterating over it.

public static List<T> synchronizedList(List<T> list)
Accepts a List which could be implementation of List
interface. e.g. ArrayList, LinkedList.
Returns a Synchronized(thread-safe) list backed by the
specified list.
Parameter list is the list to be wrapped in a synchronize list.
T represents generic

// Java program to demonstrate working of

// Collections.synchronizedList

importjava.util.*;

classGFG

{

publicstaticvoidmain (String[] args)

{

List<String> list =

Collections.synchronizedList(newArrayList<String>());

list.add("practice");

list.add("code");

list.add("quiz");

synchronized(list)

{

// must be in synchronized block

Iterator it = list.iterator();

while(it.hasNext())

System.out.println(it.next());

}

}

}

Output:

practice
code
quiz

Method 2: Using CopyOnWriteArrayList

CopyOnWriteArrayList<T> threadSafeList = new CopyOnWriteArrayList<T>();
Create an empty List.
It implements List interface.
It is a thread-safe variant of ArrayList.
T represents generic

A thread-safe variant of ArrayList in which all mutative operations (e.g. add, set, remove..) are implemented by creating a separate copy of underlying array. It achieves thread-safety by creating a separate copy of List which is a is different way than vector or other collections use to provide thread-safety.

It is useful when you can’t or don’t want to synchronize the traversal, yet need to prevent interference among concurrent threads.

It is costly as involves separate Array copy with every write operation(e.g. add, set, remove..)

It is very efficient when you have List and need to traverse over its elements and don’t modify often it.

Iterator does not throw ConcurrentModificationException even if copyOnWriteArrayList is modified once iterator is created because iterator is iterating over the separate copy of ArrayList while write operation is happening on another copy of ArrayList.

// Java program to illustrate the thread-safe ArrayList.

importjava.io.*;

importjava.util.Iterator;

importjava.util.concurrent.CopyOnWriteArrayList;

classGFG

{

publicstaticvoidmain (String[] args)

{

// creating a thread-safe Arraylist.

CopyOnWriteArrayList<String> threadSafeList

= newCopyOnWriteArrayList<String>();

// Adding elements to synchronized ArrayList

threadSafeList.add("geek");

threadSafeList.add("code");

threadSafeList.add("practice");

System.out.println("Elements of synchronized ArrayList :");

// Iterating on the synchronized ArrayList using iterator.

Iterator<String> it = threadSafeList.iterator();

while(it.hasNext())

System.out.println(it.next());

}

}

Output:

Elements of synchronized ArrayList :
geek
code
practice

What happens if we try to modify CopyOnWriteArrayList through iterator’s own method?
It throws UnsupportedOperationException if you try to modify CopyOnWriteArrayList through iterator’s own method(e.g. add(), set(), remove()).

// Java program to illustrate the thread-safe ArrayList

importjava.io.*;

importjava.util.Iterator;

importjava.util.concurrent.CopyOnWriteArrayList;

classGFG

{

publicstaticvoidmain (String[] args)

{

// creating a thread-safe Arraylist.

CopyOnWriteArrayList<String> threadSafeList =

newCopyOnWriteArrayList<String>();

// Adding elements to synchronized ArrayList

threadSafeList.add("geek");

threadSafeList.add("code");

threadSafeList.add("practice");

System.out.println("Elements of synchronized ArrayList :");

// Iterating on the synchronized ArrayList using iterator.

Iterator<String> it = threadSafeList.iterator();

while(it.hasNext())

{

String str = it.next();

it.remove();

}

}

}

Runtime Error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException
at java.util.concurrent.CopyOnWriteArrayList$COWIterator.remove
(CopyOnWriteArrayList.java:1176)
at GFG.main(File.java:28)

Other constructors of CopyOnWriteArrayList :
1. CopyOnWriteArrayList(Collection<? extends E> c) : Creates a list containing the elements of the specified collection, in the order they are returned by the collection’s iterator.
2. CopyOnWriteArrayList(E[] toCopyIn) : Creates a list holding a copy of the given array.

Why to use arrayList when vector is synchronized?

Performance: Vector is synchronized and thread-safe and because of this, it is slightly slower than ArrayList.

Functionality: Vector synchronizes at the level of each individual operation. Generally a programmer like to synchronize a whole sequence of operations. Synchronizing individual operations is both less safe and slower.

Vectors obsolete: Vectors are considered obsolete an d unofficially deprecated in java. Also,vector synchronizes on each individual operation which is almost never done. Mostly java programmers prefer using ArrayList since they will probably synchronize the arrayList explicitly anyway if they need to do synchronization.

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